Brad Bradford, Highland Park

September 15, 2012

Age: 90

Writing letters since: He's had approximately 35 letters published in the Tribune since 1992. "I started writing to the Trib when I saw something I didn't like." Bradford's work has also been published in The New York Times and Highland Park News. He credits Carol, his wife of 63 years, for editing and improving all his letters.

Life story in 125 words or less: Bradford grew up in Rockford. When he was in elementary school, a local columnist wrote a story about the death of Bradford's dog. "I was thrilled to see my name in print." He started working at his town's newspaper in high school and graduated from Princeton University in 1944. He spent some time in the Air Force, but "I got lost in my check flight. They hadn't lost enough pilots in D-Day, so they were washing people out. Of course they washed me out because I got lost." He spent the final 31 years of his newspaper career at the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette. He retired in 1986.

Self-description: "I'm more liberal than conservative, except I'm very tight with my money."

Writing experiences: After retiring from newspapers, Bradford self-published a book, "Information Technology Tales." The book chronicles sharing of information from prehistoric times through present day e-books. Bradford became a proponent of information technology after he got his first computer, the Apple II in 1978.

He played tennis until he was 89 years old.

— By Greg Cappis, Tribune reporter

Bradford's latest thoughts: Once upon a time, Dad worked a job, Mom was the homemaker and they lived well. Today both work a job (or jobs), and they barely get by.

What's diminished our middle class?

I lay the blame at the feet of the wealthy. They castrated unions when they lobbied passage of the blatantly anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.

Seven years later union membership peaked at 35 percent of the nation's work force. Then it declined steadily to today's 12 percent.

Near the start of the last century, true martyrs died at the hands of National Guard and federal troop strikebreakers who appeared at the beck and call of an "economic royalist" elite.

Their sacrifices paved the way for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to establish collective bargaining that empowered union workers to bolster the growth of a prosperous middle class.

Having paid a high price to fight bloody battles against greedy corporations, those pioneer labor leaders today must be ranting in their graves.

A right-wing choir sings verses that blame our middle-class blight on global competition, corrupt unions, public-sector pensions and excessive regulation. They ignore boardroom corruption. Ditto Wal-Mart's and similar homeland businesses' lack of any global excuse to shackle union recruiters. They decry private-sector and public-sector unions alike, though only the latter can shut down vital public services.